


Not Unspectacular Things

by annecoulmanross



Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [7]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Flashbacks, M/M, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross/pseuds/annecoulmanross
Summary: Edward had tried not to look up at the night sky anymore, after that. He'd done nothing to deserve such beauty as the stars: cold, and far away, and clean from the many, many horrors that Edward had overseen.A stand-alone story about Edward Little's experience of the afterlife.
Relationships: John Bridgens/Harry Peglar, Lt Henry T. D. Le Vesconte/Lt Edward Little
Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653634
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	Not Unspectacular Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frederickdesvoeux (doomdxys)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomdxys/gifts).



> For Edmund, who gave me some of the best lines of this fic: I now give them back to you, hopefully with some additional flesh to chew on! (im sorry, im sorry, i know) But with all seriousness, I hope this brings you some joy today, deeply angsty though it is – I do promise comfort after the hurt! 
> 
> My eternal gratitude to my beta @[kaserl](https://kaserl.tumblr.com) for tolerating my terrible timetable with this story, and nevertheless polishing off its rough edges!

It was the yellow poppies that led Edward to realize the truth, in the end. 

Walking through the sparse patches of green stems and gold blooms, Edward Little initially thought that he was dreaming. He hadn’t seen a living green thing in years and years. And now there was green everywhere – it was like walking through the fields back home, past the sycamore-lined drives and the scattered groves of dark forest. Only, here, there was no rich soil in which trees might grow, only the endless sliding of shale. That was how Edward knew it was a dream – or so he thought. 

And then he caught the scent of the flowers on the breeze. Something living, growing, another spark of life amongst the emptiness. 

But you couldn’t smell anything in dreams, Edward had read that somewhere. 

Maybe this was real? Maybe Ned’s brain was betraying him, and they’d gotten home somehow? 

But no, that wouldn’t explain the shale. Or the fact that Ned had never seen flowers like these with his own eyes before, only in pictures, carefully inked onto the pages of one of Harry Goodsir’s botany books; or dried into specimens, shown to him by the captain before all such things had to be abandoned along with everything else. 

These were Arctic flowers, Edward remembered. Captain Crozier had mentioned that they should expect to see them when the summer and fall came, but no flowers, no growing plants had ever appeared over the horizon. 

Edward knelt amongst the golden blooms. The scent was richer here – a bright, green, living smell.

Something about it almost made Edward nauseous. It took a few minutes for him to figure out how – why – but at last it came to him that the smell was something fresh and wholesome – something that could have been food, if Edward had wanted to eat. 

But Edward wasn’t hungry, not at all. Not anymore. 

He’d been hungry so long that he hadn’t recognized what it felt like, not to starve for the lack of something, anything, to put in his belly. Now, though, he felt no desire to eat anything at all. His hunger was gone, and a grey emptiness had replaced it. 

So, he was dead then. 

When he allowed this thought to enter his mind, more memories bloomed there: shreds of the autumn days, the biting cold stalking them on the journey south; the burden of losing his men one by one; and, faintly, a blurred image of Captain Crozier, dressed in a patchwork of old naval uniform clothes and Netsilik furs, looking, horrified, into Edward’s eyes as Edward had asked whether the end was finally close at hand. 

Edward remembered nothing after that. 

So Edward walked on. 

The shale shifted under his feet, making a sound he’d wished never to hear again. The endless unsteady grinding of their hopeless march south. Edward halted, unable to bear it, but staying still was no better. So Edward walked on further, fingers in his ears, humming without melody so that he might hear any other sound but this. 

Eventually, the sky began to grow dim around him, the shadowed deep gloom of night. 

Edward cautiously raised his eyes up, fearing something – if not some storm, if not divine retribution, then the darkness itself, perhaps. But instead he saw glimmering stars just beginning to appear, lights scattered across the dark sky. 

The last time Edward had seen these stars, it had been their final night. Edward hadn’t known it at the time, but looking back, he should have realized that they were close to the end. He hadn’t known then, though. 

He had been with Henry – Henry Le Vesconte, nominally Edward’s Second, though in practice Henry had somewhat taken over: he’d been the one pushing them forward long after Edward’s will had given way. He had become more Edward’s First, in truth. That last evening, they had propped themselves up in the doorway of their tent, long after the rest of the men had fallen asleep, with the camp so quiet that only the wind could be heard. With the coming autumn, the night had finally returned, after the long stretch of blinding summer during which they’d lost both their captains, and nearly all their men. It was just a small group they led now – only the men who could still walk and haul. Henry himself was barely able to haul anymore, but they both pretended not to see it. Instead, that night, they sat and watched the stars appear for the first time in months and months, knowing that it was a sign their time was running out, but unable to scorn the starlight despite that knowledge. So they’d curled up together and Ned had pointed out obscure constellations, and laughed when Henry gently mocked his enthusiasm. Henry did everything gently by that time; he didn’t have the energy for anything else, weakening day by day. 

But that evening, it had been almost a joy, when Edward had leaned back against the tent-post, and held Henry in his lap, and told him myth-stories about the stars, and brushed the tangled grey hair out of Henry’s eyes until weariness overtook them both and they crawled back to their sleeping-sack. There, Edward had fallen upon his side and pulled Henry close to lie down around him, with his arm over Edward’s ribs. Edward had thought he could feel Henry place a kiss on his shoulder, almost too light to feel. 

When Edward had awoken, he’d turned toward Henry as he’d always done, rolled over to see how Henry was holding up. That morning, Henry’s arms had been stiff around him; Edward had been forced to push at his wrist more roughly than he’d liked to make room for movement. But when Edward had finally shifted around far enough within Henry’s embrace to look at him, a sinking horror lodged itself in Edward’s chest. It looked like sleep – Henry’s eyes were shut – but his lips were unmoving, and when Edward felt his chest, his neck, the inside of his wrist, there was no trace of a heartbeat. 

Henry was gone. 

Perhaps in some other circumstances, Edward would have been shocked or shaken, but what overwhelmed him then was only the all-consuming loss. Denial of it came easy to him; Edward turned around, until he could feel Henry’s body against his back and pretend that some warmth remained in Henry’s cold fingers, which Edward clutched to his chest. He stayed like that as long as he dared, knowing that the men might tolerate their commanders sleeping close for warmth, but not… this. 

After that, Edward had tried not to look up at the night sky. Edward had done nothing to deserve such beauty: cold, and far away, and clean from the horrors that Edward had overseen next – the preparation of Henry’s body; the smell of the cooking-fire; the sound of the men eating while Edward sat off to the side, playing with the chain of Henry’s pocket-watch and trying not to retch. Trying even harder not to acknowledge that he was so very hungry, that the cooking-smell made him more so. Wondering why he hadn’t listened to Henry until it was too late. 

No, there was no meaning in the stars anymore. 

Not for Edward Little. 

Edward couldn’t say how long the night lasted. Time seemed to stretch out into minutes upon hours upon days of darkness. Sometimes, there were flowers – the sunny arctic poppies with their intoxicating smell, bled into colorlessness by the gloom; or other small pale blooms that felt _correct_ in this place, though Edward couldn’t have said why. Once, however, Edward stumbled through the shadows into a heap of rocks grown-over with briars and white wild roses. 

As he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, thorns biting into his palms, Edward realized that he was looking at an unmarked grave-cairn, like the ones they’d built for the fallen men – as many simple graves as they could manage, until spending effort on such things was too great a risk, an expenditure of time and energy they couldn’t afford when they had so little left of both. Until it was a waste to bury a body when such a thing could be used, instead, as Henry had quietly proposed over a grave much like this one, when the men were starving. Horrified, now, Edward scrambled away from the stones, back into the misty darkness. 

His march continued, in the dark, for a long while yet. Edward kept his eyes trained on the ground, watching to be certain his steps were sure. That he wouldn’t stumble over any more awful surprises. 

Eventually, the shifting surface of the shale gave way to firm, flat ice. Edward shivered. He glanced up to see how he had found himself so lost, and to his surprise, he saw glowing lights on the horizon, too bright and too golden and too regular to be stars. 

Edward set his sights on the warm glow and walked across the pack, with his own naive words – _I never want to feel ice under my boots again_ – echoing harshly in his ears. But he found himself just as unsteady when he reached the edge of the ice, scrambling up onto a rocky shore. The lights were now hidden somewhere above him; Edward wandered in the dark until he found a way up the cliff-side, a course of switch-backs that reminded Edward, horribly, of hauling the boats over walls of ice. 

At last, when it was over, Edward stood again under the starlit sky, which now framed out the dark shape of a house. Scattered candles were lit in its windows, here and there. 

With no other obvious course of action, Edward knocked on the grand front door. 

And then he waited.

Long moments later, with no response forthcoming, Edward reached tentatively for the door handle. It was late at night – perhaps the household was abed? The door was probably locked, in any case. But those who owned the house surely couldn’t begrudge him shelter for the night? It wasn’t as though there was anywhere else for Edward to go, other than back out onto the ice. 

To Edward’s shock, however, the door opened easily at his touch, swinging inward on silent hinges. Inside, the house was darkened, silent, empty. Edward felt like an intruder as he crept down a corridor lit only by a single candle at the far end, but where was he to go? He’d hoped to find a door open, but all were firmly shut. 

Then, behind him, a soft sound of footsteps. Edward turned, preparing to be thrown out – at best – if not simply attacked. 

It was worse than either of those things. 

Henry Le Vesconte stood before him – alive, again, somehow – his greying curls mussed and his dark eyes wide and shocked. 

“Edward?” he asked, voice rough with sleep. “Edward – no, I’d still hoped– oh god.” 

Edward’s heart sunk. He’d failed, then. If he’d had any doubt, before, it was gone now. Henry had expected him to keep going. To keep living.

He’d failed Henry just as he’d failed all the men under his charge. 

Reaching for him, Henry spoke again, “I– I’m.” 

“Henry–” Edward breathed.

The last time he’d said that name, it had been during a whispered conversation, on that last night they’d had together. When Edward had been lying in Henry’s arms, looking at the stars winking in and out in the darkened sky. He’d been almost on the edge of sleep, when Henry had spoken a few halting words, murmured them into the increasingly untamable curls of Edward’s hair. 

“You have to keep going, Edward,” Henry had rasped, sickness and exhaustion scratching his voice to shreds. “You should leave me here and move on. We promised the crew we’d keep moving onwards, and I’m beginning to slow the others down.” 

“Henry, I won’t–” Edward had protested. “No, Henry.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that, you know?” Henry had said. 

Edward hadn’t understood. “But it’s your name.”

Henry had sighed, and traced his long fingers over the thin bones of Edward’s wrist, and said nothing more. 

Edward had wished, after, that he’d turned around in Henry’s arms to see his face. He hadn’t thought that it would be his last chance. Instead, he’d tried not to watch Henry’s lifeless features that next morning, when they’d done what they’d thought necessary, if the men would have any chance of survival. It had turned out, of course, that there was no hope at all, and Edward had only desecrated the body of a man he’d loved, needlessly. 

Now, Henry was looking down at him with such concern in his eyes; it was too much. Edward felt tears tracking down his cheeks. 

“Go–” Edward sobbed. “Please just go.” 

His eyes were shut so tight against his tears of frustration and self-recrimination that he didn’t see Henry leave, but he heard his quiet footsteps disappearing down the corridor until there was only silence. 

Edward slipped down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, and then he curled in on himself in the darkened hallway. Perhaps, if he hid his face, no one would ever notice him again. 

Even this wish, however, was over-optimistic. 

“Edward?” a new voice said, quiet. Too quiet – Edward knew that voice, but he’d never heard it so hesitant. After gathering his emotions up into a tight bundle and stuffing them under his ribs, Edward looked up. 

It was John Irving, dressed in rumpled civilian clothes, but whole, and hale, and beginning to kneel down at Edward’s side. 

Not wanting to put John out, Edward scrambled up hastily. Irving looked taken aback.

This was all wrong – he and John had once been close. They’d leaned on each other through three long winters on _Terror_ ; Edward had been distraught when John had died. 

“John,” Edward said. “God, I’m sorry.”

Irving’s brow was creased, his mouth frowning – a familiar look. “You’ve nothing to apologize for, Little,” he said. 

“Still, I’m so sorry,” Edward said. He knew Irving had only said this because he didn’t know what Edward had done.  
But John reached for him, and then Edward was pulling the man into a tentative half-embrace. John stiffened, at first, then closed Edward in his arms, patting Edward’s back awkwardly, and resting his chin gingerly on Edward’s shoulder, and dismissing Edward’s continued apologies. 

A rush of shame came over Edward, that he’d be the one stealing comfort from Irving, unwilling – but the need outweighed the guilt. Edward didn’t think he’d been held since Henry had died. Perhaps Edward might once have been troubled by the notion of touching John, when the last he’d seen of the man were his battered remains, but that hardly seemed to matter anymore. They’d buried John before things had truly gone wrong, beyond all repair – Irving felt almost like a memory, of a time when Edward hadn’t had to carry the weight of the expedition on his shoulders, of those days before he’d been been forced to contend with willful men, and no captain, and the knot of fear and love and desperate anger about Henry. 

After a moment, John pulled away from Edward, but he didn’t go far. “Come,” he said, with a small, sad smile. “Let’s find you a place to rest.” 

Suddenly exhausted, Edward nodded, letting himself be led away. 

Even if Edward still couldn’t bring himself to forgive Henry, perhaps it would be enough to simply be _here_. 

In a place where he might finally be allowed to _stop_. 

It was close enough to an ending. 

Perhaps. 

But after that first night, Edward found it impossible to leave the room in which Irving had placed him. 

His heart would race at the thought of merely opening the door, not knowing who might be waiting for him on the other side. Irving had, of course, told him that he was the last one to arrive, bar Captain Crozier. Edward had asked after the health of the men, and then cringed at the inappropriateness of the term. Quietly, he’d begged Irving not to allow anyone to see him, to tell no one he was here. 

Instead, then, he sat at the window, watching the sun rise and set over the cliffs. Below his window, the bluff was graced with a grassy verge, scattered here and there with bright white poppies, like those that grew on the chalk cliffs at Devon. 

Sometimes, Irving would come to visit him – would bring him books, or writing-paper, or tea. Edward could hardly think of a thing to write, let alone imagine to whom he might pen a letter. And he never touched the tea. But the books did not go entirely un-appreciated. Though they were often over-religious to his tastes, Edward would devour the texts John brought him. Spiritual treatises, philosophy, and – if he was lucky – the odd novel. 

Anything was better than the inside of his own head. 

The problem was that, eventually, Edward became dependent. He was so used to having a story in which to bury himself that he lost the ability to watch aimlessly out the window without becoming hunted – _haunted_ – by his own thoughts, by his own guilt, by the notion that, should he depart from his chamber, he would be instantly pressed into whatever ghostly version of a court martial surely awaited him. 

It was inevitable, Edward supposed, that Irving would grow tired of being Edward’s one link to the outside world. Surely he couldn’t have foreseen Edward’s refusal to leave his room, his strange little self-imposed exile. But of course the day came when Edward turned the last page of the last improving text and there was no further volume to distract him, and John did not arrive with anything more for Edward to read. 

For several long hours. Edward watched the wind dance through the poppies outside the window, until the sun began to throw the stems into long shadow, and Edward thought of the first light of 1848, glowing along the edge of the horizon and over the burnt ruins of carnivale. Shuddering, Edward felt a restless, fruitless worry under his skin, and he turned away from the window. 

Surely he could leave the room quietly, and meet no one? 

He could not go back to the window. 

So Edward opened the door with great care, and peered out. To his relief, the hallway was empty. Recalling that Irving had said something about a library, Edward crept down the corridor, careful to avoid making a sound or calling any attention to himself. 

Irving had once gestured in this direction, when he’d come bearing a new book. 

Perhaps it couldn’t be too far into the labyrinthine depths of the house? 

For once, Edward Little’s luck appeared to hold, for down at the end of the corridor, a grand doorway opened into a large room, offering a glimpse of rows upon rows of shelves, all gas-lit and golden in the dark blue light of evening. 

Still hesitant, Edward entered, his eyes glancing over the leather-bound volumes. A few steps more, and Edward realized that, somewhere deeper in the library, someone was reading aloud. 

“…if God, whose temple is the whole univers, which thou seest, do not deliver thee from the f– fetters of the body, thou canst not enter here.” 

The voice was faltering, familiar. Ned knew it well – had heard it calling from _Terror_ ’s fore-top, once. A lifetime ago. 

Mr. Peglar – for surely it was he, for all that Edward had seen him dead and buried in the shale – went on. “Because man is born with that cond- condition, that he may take care of that globe, which thou seest is in the middle of this univers, and which is called earth…” 

Edward steadied himself against the bookshelf. He could speak to Mr. Peglar, surely? The man had always been good and dutiful and forgiving, quick to follow Edward’s orders, never blaming him, though he had every right to do so. 

With this thought, Edward pressed on, as Mr. Peglar continued: “…the soul is given to him from those eternal fires which you give the name of stars…” 

Edward turned the corner. 

But of course Peglar wouldn’t have been reading aloud to himself. Edward ought to have suspected. 

Still, he could not have prepared himself for the sight of Peglar, sitting cross-ways over the lap of Mr. John Bridgens in a great over-stuffed armchair, holding a slim little volume from which he read, while Bridgens watched him, patient and proud. His hands rested, one on Peglar’s hip, the other gently caressing Peglar’s knee. 

At the sight of them, Edward drew back. Certainly he knew of the high esteem in which Mr. Bridgens held Mr. Peglar, the attachment that had driven Bridgens out into the wildness in despair after Peglar had died. But it was one thing to know of it abstractly, another to see these men so carelessly entwined, so unselfconscious in their love for each other. They’d always been terribly careful with such displays, Edward remembered – until the very end, when it no longer mattered. Just like Edward had been careful with his own Henry, in truth. Hiding, careful, fearful. Never speaking it aloud, until Captain Fitzjames was all but dead, until – _If you love me, Edward, you’ll tell them we must keep moving. We must keep moving south soon or I’ll die, Ned. If you love me–_

Edward glanced back. 

Peglar had not stopped his recitation. “There were stars which we never have seen from earth and all of a greatness, which we never have been able to imagine…” and yet here Peglar stumbled, though it was no fault of his own, for Mr. Bridgens had cradled him close and kissed his bearded cheek, and Peglar smiled and–

Edward, panicked, hurried away. 

Had he been less shaken by the sight of Mr. Bridgens and Mr. Peglar – their calm contentment an awful counterpoint to Edward’s own guilt and grief and anger – he might have paid greater attention to where he was going. 

As it was, he hardly noticed that he was not alone until he had nearly run into the two tall, slim figures standing in the corridor. 

“I–” Edward began, and then he saw who he’d stumbled upon. 

Captain Fitzjames, as gleaming and polished as he’d once been in Sir John’s wardroom. 

And Henry, Fitzjames’s Dundy. Henry, who reached out and brushed Edward’s fingers with his own. 

The touch of Henry’s hand was enough to send Edward tumbling back into the past. 

They’d only had the one night together – together _like that_ – after all. And everything about it – the night itself, Henry’s touch on his skin – had haunted Edward, all the way through everything that had happened, after. 

At Terror Camp, one night, Ned had stumbled back from a late meeting with Captain Crozier, to the tent he shared with the other lieutenants. He’d arrived to find that, despite the late hour, Henry was the tent’s only occupant; he’d been sitting on Ned’s cot in the far corner, swaddled head-to-toe in the fur blanket Edward had brought from the ships to keep out the cold. 

“Christ, did that meeting require you to consult every man in camp, Edward?” Henry had said. “It’s been _forever._ I’m freezing.”

But Henry was fully wrapped in the furs, so that made little sense. 

“How–” Edward had begun, before the edge of the blanket had slipped to reveal Henry’s bare shoulder, and Edward realized that Henry was wrapped _only_ in the furs. 

“You kept me waiting,” Henry had whined, pulling at Edward’s hand. 

And so Edward had gone tumbling down beside Henry, a laugh trapped in his throat until Henry plied open his lips insistently, capturing his mouth in a desperate kiss. 

All of it – the beautiful expanse of Henry’s bare chest, so new under Edward’s cold fingers; the sounds Henry had made when Edward had kissed him; that one perfect moment of feeling loved, before it had all descended into horror and misery. It was too much. The rush of memories left Edward standing, hollow, in the hallway. 

Stammering, now, Edward felt a blush rising in his cheeks. “I–I _can’t_ , Henry.” 

Henry looked stricken. “I’m–” he began, but didn’t seem able to continue. 

Edward turned away to face the wall, hiding the misery he knew would be plain upon his face. Behind him, he heard Fitzjames’s soft command-voice – the one he’d used with his own officers when he hadn’t wanted the men to hear. 

When Edward at last turned back, Henry was gone, but Captain Fitzjames remained. 

“Are you alright, Edward?” Fitzjames asked. His voice was kind. Edward, frozen, didn’t think he could handle kindness. Couldn’t see anything he’d done to deserve kindness. 

Fitzjames tried again. “Good Lieutenant Irving kept us from your room,” he explained, “for he said you wanted no visitors.” 

“Good,” Edward replied, his voice hoarse with the first words he’d spoken in days. “I couldn’t– I’m sorry, sir, I just couldn’t have–” 

Fitzjames’s face softened further in sympathy. “I understand, Edward,” he said. “I do.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Edward breathed out, suddenly exhausted. 

There was a moment of silence. 

Edward watched understanding flash across Fitzjames’s face. 

“Come,” Fitzjames said gently, leading Edward away from the library; Edward fell easily into step beside him as he’d learned to do during the long winter of 1847. 

“Dundy wasn’t well, when I found him,” Fitzjames began, as they passed through the halls toward the back of the house. 

“Sir, I–” 

Fitzjames shook his head. “No, I think you need to hear this, Edward,” he said, turning as they passed around a corner into a large, empty ballroom. He looked Edward in the eyes. “I know what you and he did, after I was gone – what you thought you needed to do to survive. Dundy blamed himself for that – still does.” 

“He didn’t–” Edward sighed. “He shouldn’t shoulder my mistakes.” 

“Still, he has something he needs to say to you,” Fitzjames said. He lifted his hand to the gesture at the grand windows. 

Edward looked over. Outside, the sun had all but set, and mingled rosy sunset and moonlight traced the edge of the cliff with just enough light for Edward to see a familiar figure walking away, through the golden cliff-blooms. 

“Go,” Fitzjames said. It was a command, but one given with the edge of a smile. 

Following Fitzjames’s instructions, Edward opened one of the french doors and slipped outside into the evening. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the clean salt air – he couldn’t recall precisely, but he didn’t think it had been like this, when last he’d been outside the house. He remembered only cold and ice and grief. Not this, the whisper of autumn on the wind, the fresh scent of the sea. 

Picking up his pace, Edward strode out along the cliff’s edge, until Henry was less than a ship’s length ahead. 

“Henry.” 

But Henry did not turn, only stopped his restless trek. Edward caught up with him. 

“Henry,” he said again. “Please, look at me?” 

When Henry at last turned, Edward was horrified to realize that his eyes were wet with tears, his cheeks red and streaked with salt. Was this, too, Edward’s fault? 

“God, Henry, I’m the worst kind of sorry.” Edward said. “It was too much to bear, but I hurt you and I am sorry for it.” 

“I’m sorry too,” Henry answered. The words did not come easy, plain though they were; Edward saw what they cost him. 

Edward nodded. “I know, Henry – I know.” 

Trying to cast off his tears, Henry twisted away, hiding his face, but Edward slipped his hand into Henry’s, pressing their palms together. It was enough to draw Henry back, to bring a shocked look to his face. Tentatively, he pulled Edward close – something he used to do with astonishing confidence – until they were only a breath’s space apart. 

“I’m so sorry you’re here,” Henry whispered. “But I’m also very glad that you are. Here – wherever ‘here’ is – with me.” 

Something loosened in Edward’s chest, seeing the small, sad smile that pulled at Henry’s lips. Perhaps they were allowed to be glad? To be content, like Mr. Bridgens and Mr. Peglar. To be at peace, after a long journey full of suffering. 

Edward could, perhaps, even be happy. 

He imagined this, as Henry kissed him – chaste at first, then less so. As they tumbled to the grass, still embracing. As the sky darkened above them, so that when Edward at last pulled away, the stars were glimmering, lighting Henry’s still-grey hair silver. As Edward leaned in to press two kisses to Henry’s closed eyelids. 

Happy. Or at least something close to it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Source Notes:** The title “Not Unspectacular Things” comes from Ada Limón’s poem “[Dead Stars](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/618335867457683456/ada-lim%C3%B3n-dead-stars).” The flowers in the first scene were inspired by [this](https://letmeinimafairy.tumblr.com/post/616369314715598848/hurrah-todays-cloudless-sky-allowed-me-to-take-a) beautiful piece of art by @letmeinimafairy, and some of Ned’s thoughts about said flowers were inspired by [these](https://indifferent-century.tumblr.com/post/622022929872551936/tttack-croziers-herbarium-collection-of) herbarium specimens made by the real Francis Crozier. The flower-covered burial Edward stumbles upon is partly inspired by [this](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/632631374351908864/letmeinimafairy-a-very-belated-interpretation-of) other incredible drawing by @letmeinimafairy but I've put roses in place of golden poppies, because of a certain song (“Six Feet Under”) from [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6nJQZprmAno2YSLIdWTbZw?si=XCW4fFHESGeT6oBG-2CZpQ) playlist. I don’t know if white poppies grow on the chalk cliffs at Devon, but I do know that Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte grew up in Devon, so, you know, do with that symbolism what you will. The book that Bridgens and Peglar are reading is Cicero’s _The Dream of Scipio_ , specifically [this](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100639198) obscure translation from 1844 which I just happen to enjoy.


End file.
